Edinburgh Research Partnership in Engineering

You are here

Materials

Research in materials is very broad, covering soft/bio-matter and complex fluids, ice and snow, nanomaterials, porous materials, polymers/polymer composites and crystals.

Research Aims

We seek to understand the properties of materials, pioneer new kinds of materials, and optimise advanced materials for important problems facing society, such as reducing CO2 emissions, a sustainable energy supply, and materials for novel therapeutics.

Research Challenges

A key issue is the length and timescales involved; the large-scale properties of materials evolve from their micro and nanoscopic behaviour. To this end we develop and employ a broad range of modelling and experimental methods, from quantum mechanical modelling to large-scale materials testing. An associated challenge is understanding how to link these different scales together to arrive at a complete understanding. We also strive to find novel methodologies to overcome Nature’s ambient constraints.

Research Impacts

Novel materials are at the centre of efforts to tackle globally important challenges in the environment, energy, and health. Our current work focuses on materials for understanding clustering and aggregation in liquid mixtures and the thermodynamic stability of crystals for improved crystallisation processes, next generation polymer nanocomposites for gas barrier and separation applications, improved materials for industrial separation tasks ranging from carbon capture to hydrogen purification, advanced materials for clean renewable energy, advanced cutting tools and understanding behaviour of ice and snow for applications including improving tyre traction and predicting avalanches.

Research Partners

We work with a wide range of academic and industrial partners including: